Mountain View boys and Evergreen girls took the long route to their league titles
Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com
This was a long time coming for both championship programs of the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League.
The Mountain View boys last won a league title in 2009.
For the Evergreen girls? Try 1980. Yep, some 43 years ago.
Both are champions now, hoping to make it to state.
Here are a couple of championship stories from the 3A GSHL:
Mountain View Boys Basketball
For some programs, it might take a year or two to turn things around, to make it to the top.
It took a little longer at Mountain View.
That just makes it that much more special.
“It started six years ago when I took over,” said Mountain View coach JC Alexander. “It’s just been built over time. It’s really taken this senior group to really buy into what we want and what we want to do.”
In fact, senior Isaiah Vargas said he believed this could be the team way back when he was a freshman.
“We knew we had the talent, and we could make it far,” Vargas said.
The work had to be put in, of course. Sure enough, his senior year, Vargas and the Thunder have gone places they haven’t been to in quite some time. And they are not finished.
Mountain View shared the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League title with Kelso, then topped Kelso earlier this week to earn the No. 1 seed to the bi-district tournament.
Vargas scored a career-high 39 points in Monday night’s thriller.
A year ago, Mountain View finished second in the league and missed out going to state by a game.
“We knew we could be first,” Vargas said.
This is the first time Mountain View has won a league title since 2009.
“Feels amazing. It’s like making history,” Vargas said. “It’s crazy.”
The Thunder open the bi-district tournament on Saturday, with hopes of earning a trip to state. They also promise to appreciate every step in this journey.
It’s been a while, after all.
“Just hanging out with my teammates and having fun, enjoying time with them,” Vargas said. “You only live one time. You’ve got to make the best of it.”
Next: Mountain View hosts Gig Harbor at 5 p.m. Saturday in the opening round of the bi-district tournament. The winner qualifies for the state regionals. The loser will fall into the consolation bracket, still with a chance to make it to state.
Evergreen Girls Basketball
A year ago, Kimora Ross was a student at Cascade Middle School, right next to Evergreen High School.
She knew about the girls basketball program. She also heard negative stories about the high school.
Didn’t change her mindset.
“My goal was to build up the culture,” Ross said. “I’ve heard some pretty bad things before I came to the school. I wanted to come here and raise up (the standards) for Evergreen High school and for myself. It feels great to come here and succeed.”
Ross is one of top players on the Evergreen girls basketball team, a program that won one game last year and is now the 3A GSHL champion.
“It came from practice and a lot of hard work,” Ross said.
She also said team bonding played a key role. The players like each other, so they play hard for each other.
“I’ve met so many people through basketball, and they have become family to me,” Ross said.
That family did something special, with the program winning a league title for the first time in 43 years.
“It just felt like relief,” Ross said of when Evergreen clinched the championship. “Don’t get me wrong. I knew it was going to happen. But it was a relief. It just felt great.”
It is all part of the process that Ross helped start, with the start of her high school career.
“We wanted to build something up, not just for Evergreen girls basketball, but for Evergreen High School,” Ross said.
Next: Evergreen hosts North Thurston at 7 p.m. Friday in the opening round of the bi-district tournament. The winner qualifies for state regionals. The loser will fall into the consolation bracket, still with a chance to make it to state.
Also read:
- Clark County Today Sports Podcast, March 28, 2024: Have fun this spring break, a talk about spring sports scheduling, and happy opening day MLB fansGetting ready for Spring Break, we talk about spring sports and the schedule change coming next year for spring championships, plus it’s opening day in the MLB, there is some high school football news, March Madness, and we even talk old-school USFL.
- Vancouver youth now ranked No. 1 in the country by USA BoxingCain Elizondo Jr. of Vancouver has won two national championships this year, and on Friday, the official rankings were released, and he is the No. 1 intermediate (ages 13-14) 125-pound boxer in the country.
- Warm stretch of weather is just what Vancouver, and baseball players, could useCoaches and players cannot recall such a long stretch of warm, sunny days during a high school baseball season this early in the season, as the Vancouver-Portland area braces for potentially a long stretch of 70-degree days.
- Middle school girls have a wrestling tournament of their ownCascade Middle School hosts a girls-only wrestling tournament every year in hopes of mirroring the formats of high school wrestling, where boys and girls have separate state competitions.
- Clark County Today Sports Podcast, March 6, 2024: A salute to the Camas girls basketball team, and a welcome to In n Out BurgerIt is the week after state championship basketball, so we focused on the Camas girls basketball team, a salute to the Papermakers for winning the Class 4A title.